Justice
by Stormcrown201
Summary: A sacrifice at Redcliffe results in an explosive confrontation between Alistair and the young, angry Warden Tabris.


As Elior prods and tends the campfire with his stick, its crackling the loudest sound in the camp at present, he imagines he can see other things within it, other fires. The hearth in the main hall of Redcliffe Castle, no different from ever as Jowan performed his ritual though it should have seemed so; Duncan's fire at Ostagar; the battle; the flaming arrows and projectiles flying through the sky in sundry directions; the firelight in Vaughan's room by which he decapitated the young son of the arl and found Shianni beaten and broken; the flames he hopes the humans all burn in, and more. There are many sorts of fires, it would seem, or perhaps it only seems that way because so many of his memories of late have fire somewhere within them. Regardless, that is philosophy, and at eighteen, Elior is too young to have much regard for philosophy. He shakes his head and pokes the present fire again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees movement, and he looks up to see Alistair approaching, the flames casting an odd light on his armour and highlighting his furrowed brow, the muscle twitching in his jaw, which is otherwise set in a grim manner, and the small scowl contorting his mouth. He has borne that expression ever since Jowan performed his ritual, and Elior is half-starting to think he will never be rid of it, not that it matters to him. He cares nothing for what this shem thinks, and in any case, most of the time, his own face bears a similar expression. In this regard, at least, he is in no position to criticise.

Rather than sit next to him, Alistair remains standing, and rather than offer pleasantries that Elior will not return, he gets down to it at once. "Now that we're back at the camp, I want to talk about what happened. At Redcliffe," he says, and Elior sighs, lays his stick aside, and gets to his feet. The tone of Alistair's voice is neutral and belies the look on his face, but Elior knows human anger when he sees it—he would most likely not have survived the alienage if he had never learnt to recognise it. Again, however, it doesn't matter. Alistair will not kill him, and whatever his feelings at this latest turn of events, Elior cares not a whit for it. He is a shem; his opinion means nothing. And, in any case, it is over. They must move forward.

"You were there," Elior says, folding his arms and looking up at Alistair, uncaring as well of the height difference. "You saw what happened."

"Yes, I know," Alistair says, and his voice trembles just a little, and the muscle twitches in his jaw again, obvious signs that he is struggling to restrain his rage. For just a moment, Elior squares his shoulders, and his muscles go taut and his mouth dry, instinctive reactions of his to human fury, but within another few seconds, he has shaken them off, and he supposes Alistair to be none the wiser. He cannot help fearing what shemscan do when they're angry, but he'll be damned if he'll show any one of the bastards that fear. Let them see his strength, let them see his anger instead, and let them run like the cowards they are.

Without further warning, Alistair erupts, his voice rising in a shout. "You let Lady Isolde sacrifice herself?" he yells. "With blood magic? How could you do that?" Elior steps back, unable to suppress a wince at the suddenness of his reaction, but then he too sets his jaw and plants his feet firmly on the ground. He ignores the fear that trickles through his veins, the fear that has likely kept him alive all those years but that he wishes he could be rid of regardless. He reminds himself again that there is nothing to fear from Alistair: he is no great warrior, others are present, and if he kills Elior, then he'll have to take over leading the group himself, one of the things he least desires. That alone will stay his hand, and that gives Elior confidence.

"It was her choice, Alistair," Elior says. His words are terse and his voice unwavering. "It's no skin off my back. As far as I'm concerned, the bitch got what she deserved." Just as he gave Vaughan what he deserved for what he had done to Shianni and would have done to the other women, so here he made sure Isolde got what she deserved for her part in Eamon's poisoning, her son's possession, and the near-destruction of Redcliffe—not that he cares about any shem lord or shem child or shem villagers. Regardless of his feelings, however, there had to be justice, there had to be consequences. And if Alistair cannot see that, he thinks, then perhaps he is indeed as stupid as Morrigan makes him out to be.

A shame. He'd almost wanted to like Alistair. Almost.

"She was grasping at straws! Of course she would sacrifice herself, she felt guilty for what happened!" Alistair protests, his face now twisted with anger as he gives it free rein. Elior's lip curls as he wonders if that is true—yes, Isolde may have said that she knew she was the one responsible, but Connor was the only one she ever thought about, not the innocent villagers who suffered even more than he did because of her foolishness and her pride and her piety. "But there must have been another way!"

"And what other way would that have been?" Elior says, his lip curling in a sneer. Alistair is almost a foot taller, but still he looks up at the man as though he were looking down on him, contempt in his gaze and on every plane of his face. "One that involved her not suffering the consequences of her actions, I guess? There had to be a price for what she did, Alistair, and she had to pay it. I made sure of that. I made sure there was justice." A rare idea, justice, something that the humans have never given his people and only rarely give to themselves. For lack of this, he has always had to make his own justice, and what happened at Redcliffe, what happened in the Arl of Denerim's estate, was no different.

Alistair shakes his head, profound disbelief mirroring Elior's contempt. "Justice?" he says. "You sacrificed her! How is that—that isn't justice!"

Of course it isn't. Why would it be to a shem? There is another kind of fire, one that Elior always carries within him, one that is always simmering beneath his skin, and here, the tallest flames penetrate the surface and begin to flicker through the holes. His lip curls with something else entirely this time, and he glares at Alistair. "Oh, what is justice, hmm, shem?" he snaps. "Letting Isolde getting away with her idiocy? That's justice to you shems, isn't it? Letting other shems get away with their crimes!"

As the words leave his mouth, he recalls what Alistair said to him upon their arrival at Redcliffe of how Isolde had treated him when he was a child. Elior had sympathised with him somewhat then—now, he finds it to be good ammunition. He takes a deep breath, and he gives Alistair another glance, this one more of suspicion than anything else. "Besides… I'd have thought you'd have wanted her dead, Alistair, given the way she treated you." Alistair seems to startle and flinch back from him, disbelief and disgust now eclipsing the fury on his face, and Elior snorts. He'd ask why the man is so inclined to defend her even now, but he knows the answer already. "Wait…" he says, "you don't have any backbone, do you?"

Alistair's face contorts with rage once again, but this time he also looks affronted, which is no real surprise. Human men do love to take umbrage when somebody accuses them of lacking in virility, in strength, in some vital component of masculinity, or at least, this has always been Elior's experience. Still, to Alistair's credit, he does not respond directly to the insult and lose the point of what he was trying to say. Instead, he says, "This isn't about me! Or racial politics! This is the arl's wife we're talking about here. What do you think he'll say when we revive him?"

Elior lets out another snort, louder and ruder yet, and rolls his eyes. "I don't really care what some shem lord thinks," he says. "Somebody had to make sure Isolde paid for her crimes, because Maker knows no human would ever have done so! And if that's what bothers Eamon when a Blight is approaching, then his priorities are as fucked as Loghain's, and we don't need him!"

Alistair shakes his head. "I just don't know how you could do it, how you could make that decision. I owe the arl more than this," he says, lowering his voice and ignoring Elior's words about Eamon. This time, Elior thinks, it is not to his credit; if Alistair will not agree with him that Isolde needed to pay or at least acknowledge the point, then he must care as little about justice as every other shem does. There's a spike of disappointment in his gut as he thinks that, and for a moment, he wonders why that might be. He should not be surprised, still less disappointed; Alistair is a shem, and they are evil by nature, no matter what airs they assume. The only ones who aren't are their children—and they will be evil themselves one day, when they are adults. It is inevitable. So this one shem caring nothing for justice should not be notable in any way.

Still, there are other issues at play here; even Elior in his anger and his youthfulness can see that. "You're the one who told me Grey Wardens can do extreme things to end a Blight," he says, and like Alistair, his voice is now steadier than it was previously. "Anything to secure victory. So why can't you swallow this?"

Alistair returns to shooting daggers at him, and Elior is all too happy to pay the look back in kind. There is nothing intimidating about it, not now; if the shem hopes to scare him, then he has another thing coming. "This has nothing to do with the Blight!" he yells, his voice rising once more. "You sacrificed the arl's wife! How could you—"

All at once, Elior wishes to be done with the entire wretched argument. He will not back down, and neither will Alistair; it is pointless to continue, and he can think of much better things he could be doing—like talking to Zevran. Sad that the only person Elior wishes to speak with in this little group is the one who actively tried to kill him—but he is a pleasant man, dubious morals aside, and more importantly, he is an elf. That alone elevates him above the shems that surround him and Elior, who now scowls and shouts over his fellow Warden, "Deal with it, Alistair! I don't really care what you think, either!"

"No, I can see that," Alistair says, and his voice has gone quiet again—a clear sign that he too wishes to withdraw. In his face, Elior now sees no anger, only hurt and disappointment and bitterness—for what, he wonders, for it is not as if they are friends or even comrades. "You don't care what anyone thinks."

Elior makes a contemptuous noise and throws up his hand in a gesture of dismissal. He should withdraw, he knows, but if Alistair is to act like a child and question his decisions in such a manner, then he has one more thing to say to him. "Oh, don't start your fucking whining," he says. "You lost all right to question my decisions when you willingly handed leadership to me, because you're such a fucking coward and a weakling that you couldn't stop crying long enough to do your job."

Now Alistair's face practically reddens with rage, and its contortions and the way that muscle works in his jaw and the wrath and hurt that mingle there send a bolt of vicious but pure pleasure through Elior's veins. Good, let Alistair be hurt; it is nothing compared to what he has felt trying to lead the party as an eighteen-year-old elf who never knew a world outside the Denerim alienage before two months ago and never wanted to join the Wardens. "But now you would try to tell me what to do?" he continues. "As if. You know, maybe it's for the best that you let me lead; look how spineless and weak and pathetic you are, only taking a stand when something doesn't go the way you want it to! A fine example of the Grey Wardens, really, I have no idea what Duncan saw in you—"

That, of course, finally seems to bring Alistair to his breaking point. He steps forward, and though he does not raise his fist, he is all but spitting with fury. "Don't you dare—"

Elior stands his ground and again shouts over him, his words coming out almost in a snarl, filled to the brim with resentment and ire all of his own. "I'll do whatever I please, shem!" he shouts back, almost bellows. "Isolde wasn't the first noble I brought justice to, and she will not be the last! If you hate justice as much as every other shem, I can't change that, but you will fall in line and get out of my face!"

"You—"

But before Alistair can get another word out, an arm interposes itself between the pair of them, and Elior finds himself being pushed back while someone else—Leliana, he thinks—tugs Alistair away by his arm. His wordless shout of protest is cut off when he looks up and sees Sten, back from guard duty, glaring down at both him and Alistair.

"Parshaara," the man says in a tone that brooks no argument even from Elior. "There are darkspawn nearby. You will draw their attention if you do not quieten."

That should be reason for them to shut up, he knows, but Elior finds now that he wants a fight, wants a way to vent the rage that is now boiling over yet again, as it does every other day, like a kettle that is never empty. It doesn't matter who this fight may be with, with Alistair or the darkspawn or Sten himself, he just wants it. He opens his mouth to object, but then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Zevran and Wynne, and unbidden, he turns his head to look at them.

Wynne has planted her staff firmly on the ground, right where he and Alistair can see it, and she grips it in a way that suggests she is prepared to raise it at any hint of provocation. "Boys," she says, and her tone is grandmotherly but also stern, "if you do not stop, Sten and I will separate you. Settle down now, the both of you."

Pretty words, Elior supposes, and perhaps she can back them up with action, unlike most humans, but he will no more obey this mage shem who licks the boots of the Chantry and the templars than he will Alistair. His mouth twists into a scowl bordering on a snarl again, but as the words to say where she can shove her advice make their way up his throat, he notices Zevran approaching, and he focuses his gaze on him. A more pleasant sight than the shems, certainly.

"Come, now," Zevran says, and his voice is oddly… soothing. It's so jarring, so very un-assassin-like, that it clears much of the haze of anger clouding Elior's head as he tries to work past the incongruence. He narrows his eyes and stares at Zevran, who does not appear to notice. He speaks again, but unlike Wynne, he does not give an order. "Surely it is not worth spending your energy on this anger."

For a moment, Elior keeps staring at him, and again, he wants to protest. But Zevran is an elf, giving him advice and not a command, and so he thinks. It is true, they have a long journey ahead of them tomorrow, and Maker only knows what they might encounter on this journey. It would be disadvantageous for Elior to be tired and drained on this trip, as he so often is after his explosions of anger. Perhaps, instead, he should take his fury, bottle it up, and then let it loose again when they are facing more darkspawn or bandits, rather than wasting it and his energy in an argument he cannot win.

Sensible, he supposes. Still, his black mood remains. "Fine," he mutters, not looking at Zevran or at anyone as he allows his muscles to go limp. A few moments later, Sten lets his arm go, and there Elior remains standing for several seconds more before he shakes his head and walks away, the fury still pumping through his veins, and the group disperses back to their previous activities.

For just a moment as he goes, he turns his head to look at the site of confrontation, and he does so in time to see Alistair storm off, his quick strides and the tension in his muscles ample evidence of his own rage. Elior watches him, and even through his ire there is again that pinprick of disappointment, and of another feeling that he can't quite name but that he shouldn't be feeling at all. He does not understand why they are there. He should feel nothing for the shem.

It's pointless considering. Moments later, Elior turns around again and keeps walking. There is nothing else that can be done now.


End file.
